Poems

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by John L. Stoddard

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Title: Poems

Author: John L. Stoddard

Release Date: February 15, 2004 [EBook #11091]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***

Produced by Ted Garvin, Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed Proofreaders

POEMS

BY

JOHN L. STODDARD

1913

CONJUGI CARISSIMAE

PROEM

They called him mad,—the poor, old man,

Whose white hair, worn and thin,

Fell o'er his shoulders, as he played

His cherished violin,

Forever drawing to and fro

O'er silent strings a loosened bow.

At times on his pathetic face

A look of perfect rapture shone,

Intent on some celestial chords,

Discerned by him alone;

And sometimes he would smile and pause,

As if receiving loud applause.

So, many a humble poet dreams

His songs will touch the human heart,

And full of hope his offering lays

Before the shrine of Art;

Poor dreamer, may he never know

That he too draws a silent bow!

CONTENTS

PROEM MY PROMENADE SOLITAIRE REINCARNATION TO THE RING NEBULA THE WAIF THE SILVER HERONS TO THE SPHINX YOUTH AND AGE SUNSET AT INTERLAKEN UNDER THE STARS CORSICA TO THE VENUS OF MELOS MORS LEONIS A STORY OF THE SEA OLD HYMN TUNES BEFORE A STATUE OF BUDDHA THE PILLARS OF HERCULES FRIENDSHIP TO MY DEAD DOG TO-DAY TO THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI THE DEATH OF ANTONINUS PIUS THE BUTTERFLY AFTER THE STORM FALLEN AEQUANIMITAS DREAMLAND ROME REVISITED ON THE PALATINE THE FAREWELL AT FONTAINEBLEAU JAPAN—OLD AND NEW THE UNFORGOTTEN HEROES A WINTER'S DAY ON THE PROMENADE SOLITUDE OUT OF THE RANKS AUTONOMY ORIENT TO OCCIDENT THE CAPTIVE WEARINESS A MAY MONODY MY LOST FRIENDS TO SLEEP AND TO FORGET IN SILENCE AT THE VILLA OF FREDERICK III IN A COLUMBARIUM DISCOURAGEMENT MÉSALLIANCE IN A MODERN CITY MY BORES GRATITUDE IN TENEBRIS TWO MOTHERS AT HOCHFINSTERMÜNZ THE GIFT OF JUNO THE AWAKENING THE WINE OF LIFE LIFE'S TRILOGY MYSTERIES STAR DRIFT

TYROLEAN

OBERMAIS CONTENTMENT TO MERAN'S NORTHERN MOUNTAINS AT SUNSET POST NUBES LUX THE HOME-COMING FROM ROME MY GARDEN THE MOUNTAINS OF MERAN OSWALD, THE MINNESINGER AFTER THE VINTAGE THE PASSING MOON AUTUMN IN MERAN THE STATUE OF THE EMPRESS ELIZABETH THE OUTCASTS HEIMWEIL MY LIBRARY TOUT PASSE

BESIDE LAKE COMO

THE FAUN ISOLA COMACINA THE OLD CARRIER EVENING ON LAKE COMO DELIO PATRI ACQUA FREDDA THE POSTERN GATE UNDINE JANUARY IN THE TREMEZZINA THE WANDERER SECLUSION ONE MORE UNDER THE PLANE TREE CONJUGI CARISSIMAE THE PAGAN PAST RETIREMENT IN NOVEMBER THE CALL OF THE BLOOD THE CASCADE BIRD SLAUGHTER THE IRON CROWN CONTRASTS IN MY PERGOLA EVANESCENCE LAKE COMO IN AUTUMN TO THE PORTRAIT OF NAPOLEON DAY AND NIGHT PASSING AND PERMANENT TRIPOLI INFLUENCE LEO FAREWELL TO THE FAUN WAKEFULNESS VILLA PLINIANA POINT BALBIANELLO AT LENNO

PERSONALLY ADDRESSED

  LINES WRITTEN FOR A GOLDEN WEDDING

  TO THE WALKING-STICK OF MY DEAD FRIEND

  TO C.

  TO MR. AND MRS. A.H.S.

  To M.C. OF ATHENS

  TO J.B.

  TO M.P.

  TO MISS MARY C. LOW

  IN MEMORIAM. G.M.M.

  TO HON. CHARLES M. DICKINSON

  TO J.C.Y.

  TO HON. JESSE HOLDOM

TRANSLATIONS

THE KISS TO THE FLAG EMILY'S GRAVE SERENADE TO NINON THE RED TYROLEAN EAGLE ANDREAS HOFER STREAM AND SEA

* * * * *

RACHEL

MY PROMENADE SOLITAIRE

Up and down in my garden fair,

Under the trellis where grapes will bloom,

With the breath of violets in the air,

As pallid Winter for Spring makes room,

I walk and ponder, free from care,

In my beautiful Promenade Solitaire.

Back and forth in the checkered shade

Traced by the lattice that holds the vine,

With the glory of snow-capped crests displayed

On the sapphire sky in a billowy line,

I stroll, and ask what can compare

With the charm of my Promenade Solitaire.

To and fro 'neath the nascent green

Which clambers over its slender frame,

With white peaks lighting up the scene,

As snowfields glow with the sunset flame,

I saunter, halting here and there

For the view from my Promenade Solitaire.

In and out through the silence sweet,

Plash of fountain and song of bird

Are the only sounds in my lov'd retreat

By which the air is ever stirred;

It is like a long-drawn aisle of prayer,

So hushed is my Promenade Solitaire.

Onward rushes the world without,

But the breeze which over my garden steals

Brings from it merely a distant shout

Or the echo light of passing wheels;

In its din and drive I have now no share,

As I muse in my Promenade Solitaire.

Am I dead to the world, that I thus disdain

Its moil and toil in the prime of life,

When perhaps a score of years remain

To win more gold in its selfish strife?

Am I foolish to choose the purer air

Of my glorious Promenade Solitaire?

Ah no! From my mountain-girdled height

I watch the game of the world go on,

And note the course of the bitter fight,

And what is lost and what is won;

And I judge of it better here than there,

As I gaze from my Promenade Solitaire.

It is ever the same old tale of greed,

Of robbing and killing the weaker race,

Of the word proved false by the cruel deed,

Of the slanderous tongue with the friendly face;

'Tis enough to make one's heart despair

Even here in my Promenade Solitaire.

They cheer, and struggle, and beat the air

With many a stroke and thrust intense,

And urge each other to do and dare,

To gain some good they deem immense;

But they look like ants contending there

From the height of my Promenade Solitaire.

Backward and forward they run and crawl,

Houses and treasures they heap up high,

Hither and thither their booty haul, …

Then suddenly drop in their tracks and die!

For few are wise enough to repair

In time to a Promenade Solitaire.

Meantime the Earth speeds on through space,

As the sun for a million years hath steered,

And, an eon hence, the entire race

Will have played its part and disappeared;

But what will the lifeless planet care,

As it follows its Promenade Solitaire?

REINCARNATION

I know not how, I know not where,

But from my own heart's mystic lore

I feel that I have breathed this air,

And walked this earth before;

And that in this, its latest form

My old-time spirit once more strives,

As it has fought through many a storm

In past, forgotten lives.

Not inexperienced did my soul

This incarnation's threshold tread;

Not recordless has proved the scroll

It brought back from the dead.

To certain, special lines of thought

My mind intuitively tends,

And old affinities have brought

Not new, but ancient friends.

What thrilled me in a previous state

Rekindles here its ancient flame;

What I by instinct love and hate

I knew before I came;

And lands, of which in youth I dreamed

And read, heart-moved, and longed to see,

When really visited, have seemed

Not strange but known to me.

When Mozart, still a child, untaught,

Ran joyous to the silent keys,

And with inspired fingers wrought

Majestic harmonies,

There fell upon his psychic ear

Faint echoes of a music known

Before his natal advent here,

In former lives outgrown.

In many a dumb brute's wistful eyes

A dawning human soul aspires,

For thus from lower forms we rise,—

Ourselves our spirits' sires.

Full many a thought that thrills my breast

Is fruit resulting from a seed

Sown elsewhere,—on my soul impressed

By many an arduous deed;

Full many a fetter which hath lamed

My struggling spirit's upward flight

Was once by that same spirit framed,

When further from the Light;

With justice, therefore, comes the pain

That o'er the tortured world extends;

And hopeful is the lessening stain,

As each life-cycle ends.

No changeless, endless states await

The good and evil souls set free;

Each grave is a successive gate

In immortality.

Too long this mighty truth hath slept

Among the darkened souls of men,—

"Ye cannot see God's face, except

Ye shall be born again."

The God-like Christs and Buddhas yearn,

However high their spirits' stage,

For man's salvation to return,

As Saviour or as Sage.

On our benighted, groping minds

Their noble precepts, star-like, shine;

Each soul, that wisely seeks them, finds

The truths that are divine.

Misunderstood and vilified,

Their aims and motives scarcely known,

How many of these Saints have died,

Rejected by their own!

Yet, though their followers miss the way,

In spite of precept and of prayer,

And lead unnumbered souls astray,

Committed to their care,

Upon the lofty spirit-plane,

Where all lies open to their sight,

The Masters know that not in vain

They left the Hills of Light.

TO THE RING NEBULA

O pallid spectre of the midnight skies,

Whose phantom features in the dome of Night

Elude the keenest gaze of wistful eyes,

Till amplest lenses aid the failing sight;

On heaven's blue sea the farthest isle of fire,

From thee, whose glories it would fain admire,

Must vision, baffled, in despair retire!

What art thou, ghostly visitant of flame?

Wouldst thou 'neath closer scrutiny resolve

In myriad suns that constellations frame,

Around which life-blest satellites revolve,

Like those unnumbered orbs which nightly creep

In dim procession o'er the azure steep,

As white-winged caravans the desert sweep?

Or art thou still an incandescent mass,

Acquiring form as hostile forces urge,

Through whose vast length continuous lightnings pass,

As to and fro its fiery billows surge?

Whose glowing atoms, whirled in ceaseless strife,

Where now chaotic anarchy is rife,

Shall yet become the fair abodes of life?

We know not; for the faint, exhausted rays

Which hither on Light's winged coursers come

From fires which ages since first lit their blaze,

One instant gleam, then perish, spent and dumb;

How sad the thought that, howsoe'er we yearn

Of life on yonder glittering orbs to learn,

We read no message, and could none return!

Yet this we know:—yon ring of spectral light,

Whose distance thrills the soul with solemn awe,

Can ne'er escape in its majestic might

The firm control of omnipresent law;

This mote descending to its bounden place,

Those suns whose radiance we can scarcely trace,

Alike obey the Power pervading space.

THE WAIF

I sit in my luxurious chair;

Soft rugs caress my slippered feet;

Within, a balmy, summer air;

Without, a wintry storm of sleet.

A favorite book is in my hands,

A thousand others line the walls;

Some souvenir of distant lands

In every nook the Past recalls.

Upon a Turkish tabouret

In Dresden cups of peerless blue

Gleams on a pretty Cashmere tray

The fragrant Mocha's ebon hue.

Two dainty hands prepare the draught,

While loving glances meet my own;

Two lips repeat (the coffee quaffed),

To-night 'tis sweet to be alone.

Hark! in the court my faithful hound

Breaks rudely on our tête-à-tête;

Too well I understand that sound!

A mendicant is at my gate.

Admit him? Yes; for none shall say

That he who seeks in want my door

Is ever harshly turned away;

His plea is heard, if nothing more.

I leave my comforts with a sigh,

And, passing to the outer hall,

Behold a wanderer doomed to die,—

So ill, I look to see him fall.

I know his story ere he speaks;

And listening to his labored breath,

I trace, with tears upon my cheeks,

His long and hopeless fight with death.

A poor, storm-beaten, lonely waif,

Lured southward from a colder clime

By hope and that unfailing faith

That health will come again in time!

Alas! too late; the dread disease

Hath fixed its roots too firmly there;

And now sick, friendless, at my knees,

He pours forth his heart-breaking prayer.

What are his needs? Before all, food!

Hot soup, bread, wine, until at last

A sense of human brotherhood

Obliterates his cruel past;

Yet not for long; for though well-fed,

With warmer garments than before,

He hath no place to lay his head,

On turning from my friendly door.

I slip some silver in his hand,

('Twill purchase shelter for the night,)

Then, silent and remorseful, stand

To watch his bent form out of sight.

On, on he goes through snow and sleet,

With nothing more of warmth and cheer!

From such a home to such a street!

Ah, should I not have kept him here?

My room is no less bright and warm,

But all its charm and joy have fled;

That lonely figure in the storm

Leaves both our hearts uncomforted.

For this is but one tiny wave

In life's vast, shoreless sea of woe,—

One note in man's hoarse cry to save,

Resounding o'er its ebb and flow;

I ask myself in blank dismay,—

Ought I my little wealth to own?

Yet, should I give it all away,

'Twere but a drop to ocean thrown!

Great God! if what I dimly see,

In this small section of mankind,

Of pain and want and misery,

Can thus bring anguish to my mind,

How canst Thou view the awful whole,

As our ensanguined planet rolls

From unknown source to unknown goal

Its freight of suffering human souls?

Permitted pain!—the first and last

Of riddles that we strive to solve,

More poignant ever, and more vast,

As man's mentalities evolve,

I hear thy victims' ceaseless wails,

I view the path my race hath trod,

And at the sight my spirit quails,

And cries in agony to God!

THE SILVER HERONS

Within a home for captive beasts

Whose world had dwindled to a cage,

I noted in